Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Back again with more updates. I am crocheting like crazy at the moment. I have a few ongoing projects plus things in between. Let's get on with it shall we...

First up my temperature blanket. I'm not sure what everyone else has done on this as far as a temperature reading, but I check the temp 3 times daily. Mostly around the same times. Basically morning, afternoon and when I walk the dogs. I have been using the temp when I walk the dogs for my color choices. I've kept track of these temps and found that I would have had far less color variations if just using the days high. I guess as the weather changes and warms up (as it does in So Cal) I will be pretty bored of orange and red, so I shall just enjoy my blues for the time being.

Day 4

My other ongoing project is my Eater of Yarns blanket. As it grow, my stash shrinks. Since I have such a large stash this is a very good thing. Plus I'm using up all those single skeins that I have no idea where they came from and also using up partial skeins. It's making for a very fun blanket that Katlyn is already trying to claim as her own.

It's growing

So while waiting for the timer to go off I sat to have a quick read. Stella decided to make herself at home on my back and Katlyn was quite amused by this.

Animals are weird!

Both blankets in one photo. The Eater of Yarns is huge and very hard to get all in a photo, same really for the Temperature but I since I'm just updating the daily rows right now, it's easy enough.

Day 9

So another project I started and finished in a day. Kid needed a sweater, I looked online and found a simple enough sweater and took his measurements and set off. All was fine until the putting it together. since the collar is a bit smaller (so I thought) There was a tricky bit to getting it to fit together properly. Finally get it done and put on Kid and alas...I messed up!

dog sweater parts

I made the chest piece too big. I measured him at 6 inches and for some reason I made the piece 9 inches! Ugh! So I am going to have to figure something out for him, he's less then amused with my skills!

Kid in his new sweater

Added the yarn samples to my color chart just for visual effects really, I only have 9 colors plus white if the temp ever gets below 25 degrees (hahaha)

Day 11 with color chart

Just a photo to show the progress of Eater of Yarns

Jan 13th

My bag of temperature yarn, it's a very tight fit at the moment.

Day 14

I decided my Grandson needs more geeky hats, so a Pokeball hat was in order along with a Ninja Turtle set.

Pokeball

Ninja Turtle

I started a new cowl with my lovely Malabrigo yarn. It's going to be a triple wrap cowl and I am very excited to get to wearing this!

Saturday coffee and crochet

Brooke likes to facetime me, usually daily (I am a lucky Grandma!) We chat about everything and I crochet and she colors or watches tv, basically we just hangout.. Saturday Alysha and Christopher went to a wedding expo and Alysha got a tiara for being the bride which of course Brooke later commandeered so I was able to get pictures of my girl in a tiara.

Brooke in a tiara

Here's a shot of all 3 projects I worked on over the weekend. This was Sunday evening.

weekend wrap up

Monday my boss let me go home a few hours early, so I played with yarn. I wound loose skeins into cakes and tried hard to get a decent shot of the eater of yarns blanket, but holy hell it's huge! Like too big for my bed huge, I spread out a white sheet to show it off better, but between the overcast day outside and Katlyn's puppy, who would not stay off my bed....this is the best I got for now. I guess the stripes are going to be running vertical instead of horizontal on the bed. Oopsy.

Harley wanted to be in the picture

Ok that about wraps everything up. I will end with another temperature blanket photo and sign off for now with day 18.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Here we are the 2nd week of January and I haven't posted since September! Oh dear....I will do a quick picture update from the last couple of months!

Things I've completed, still working on or newly started!

He likes to hang out with me

Pumpkin hat

Santa c2c

Katlyn got a new puppy, she was found tied up in an alley with no water with the temperature outside above 90. She was approximately 3 months old according to the vet, malnourished and had to take medication for some aliment that I can't remember, but she is now a bouncy, healthy, near 6 month old puppy who is slowly destroying my house!

New puppy

Now on with the new boy in the family who is seriously the sweetest baby ever! Born September 20th

New Grandson!

My Son the shark

He's so tiny!

Candy Corn Hat

Boob Beanie

Katlyn turned 21

2 Grandkids now!

the growing blanket

Me & Brooke

Lunch at the mall

recycled silk yarn - Darn Good Yarn

Snowman c2c

a quick headband

He came down for a visit!

family photos

oh this face!

turkey hat

he likes it

Christmas gifts

all done

another gift

slippers - literally finished on Christmas!

I think all the photos above have explanations enough for a quick update.

Now on to current projects!

I started this blanket on December 30th, with the idea that I could use up some of my yarn. I have so much and it just sits in plastic tubs in the closet, so I figured I could use up some of it and make a new blanket at the same time with no pressure of Christmas or any other holiday to finish it up. So I make a very long starting chain, I think it was 196 chains with 2 strands held together and an M hook (9.00mm) It's going to be huge! Here's what I'm doing, hdc in each ch/st across with a 2ch turn at the end of each row. I do 2 rows and then switch out 1 of the colors and have that on repeat until I get it a length I like. The first picture is the start of the first row, which I do my hdc's in the back of the starting chain. It's is a pain, but I do like that it doesn't look like the starting row. The picture below it you can see how the blanket has advanced in just a couple of days.

first row is always the hardest

On January 1st I started a temperature blanket. 1 row daily with the color depending on the outside temperature, usually I go with what the temperature is when I walk the dogs in the late afternoon. Maybe next year I'll do another with the temp at noon. It's Southern California, I'm not sure how much of variety I will be getting once it warms up a bit.

day 2

That's it for now, I've been taking daily pictures of the temperature blanket and lots of pictures of the Eater of Yarn blanket. I want to spread it out on the bed for a large shot but my bed has a dark duvet cover and since the damn puppy ate my quilt that was light colored and I used for many photo shoots....sigh. I'll figure something out!